We’re very pleased to announce that Julianna was born at 12:52am on June 18th. She weighed 8 pounds 2 ounces, and was 20 inches long. Everybody is doing fantastic, and we’ll have some pictures up in a day or two.
Update - pictures now available (click on Julianna to go to the gallery)
A couple of weeks ago, we were down in Springfield doing some shopping. We decided to stop in a certain home improvement store, that henceforth shall be known as “The Boring Work Store Of Doom!”. As we pulled into the parking lot, Elizabeth (who is almost six) says, “oh no! It’s the boring work store of doom!” and then proceeds to add the organ sound effects “dum dum duuummmm!”.
Dominic used to really hate that store too. We used to tell him we were going to his favorite store, and he’d just groan and writhe around in pain. And he’d mope the whole time we were in the store. Now that he’s a little older, he really likes it. He looks around and sees possibilities. Maybe Elizabeth will learn to see the store in a new light as she gets older too.
It seems our kids have said several humorous things lately. We bought bunk beds for our girls with our “economic stimulus” check. Teresa refers to them as “punk beds”, which when you think about it is really a far more accurate description.
Not to be out-done, William (who is almost two) has picked up a new little habit. Any time somebody…uh…passes gas…breaks wind…er, well, anytime somebody farts (or even makes a fart-like sound), he’ll say “Eeeeeeeewwww! Pew, pew, pew, pew!” while fanning the air in front of his nose. This is one of those things that’s really cute AT HOME, but is not so funny in public. So far, he hasn’t been too obvious about it publicly, but I’m sure the day is coming.
Dominic has published a website of his own now. I have to say that I’m rather proud of him. He’s learned a lot about HTML, JavaScript, and PHP. Not bad at all for a 14 year old. That being said, I encourage you to visit his site. Just be careful what you click on, because he has these little things called “Insanity Challenges” and other little JavaScript based things. Lets just say that the average 14 year old learning JavaScript will find them clever and amusing, and leave it at that. You’ve been warned ;)
Well, birthing season (lambs, goat kids, kittens) is over (unless you count Allena!) and the ranch has expanded.
We ended up with 10 lambs this year out of 8 ewes - which is a pretty low birth rate for sheep. It was a strange year. We had a lot of ewes give birth to single gigantic ram lambs. One of them was nearly 10 pounds - the average size Shetland lamb is 6 pounds or so, just to put that in perspective.
We also ended up with 5 goat kids, which we have taken to calling “goatlings” so that we know we’re talking about baby goats and not our own children. One of them went back to the breeder that we purchased the goats from. We had one little buck and we gave him to the neighbors as a 4H project goat. They were glad to have him, and we were glad to be rid of him, so win-win on that.
Finally, we ended up with 5 kittens. These were born just a week ago or so. One of them was starting to open its eyes last night. We will likely keep a couple of these - we lost a couple of cats over the last several months. One died of old age, the other died of unknown causes - was just dead one morning. However, if you’re looking for a kitten…just let me know ;)
Yesterday, we brought home the newest additions to the ranch - four angora rabbits. These are a 4H project for Dominic and fiber critter for Allena. We traded a couple of sheep for four of these bunnies, and actually ended up with six. The last two are not at the ranch yet as they currently have kits that still need them, but when the rabbit breeder comes to pick up her sheep next month, she’ll be bringing those two with her. I’m looking forward to some very warm mittens next year. Angora is several times warmer (six times? eight times? can’t remember) than wool, and of course is very very soft.
As a side note, I built cages for these bunnies on Saturday out of 1/2 inch wire mesh. I used these little metallic fastener thingies called a “J-Klips” to put them together. For the record, J-Klips rock! :). Also for the record, it is a LOT easier to cut wire mesh using a grinder with a cutting disk than it is to use tin-snips or wire cutters. Just saying. I really need to start carrying a camera around with me. I should have taken pictures of the cage-building process. A lot of people find my site via Google when searching for how to build pig shelters and horse shelters and fun stuff like that. I have one more cage to build for the rabbits coming next month - MEMO TO ME: TAKE PICTURES!
So now we’re just waiting for June when the newest member of the (human population) of the ranch is due to arrive. Nine weeks and counting!
This is our sheep Mist, who was having a bad day :). Allena submitted it to icanhascheezburger.com - click on the picture to vote for it, and fame and fortune will be ours! Well, fame anyway. OK, not really that either, but it’ll be fun for us!
moar funny pictures
We live on a small farm, and we raise some of our own food - other than the garden, this has thus far included chickens for eggs and meat and pigs for meat. Lamb will be taking its place on the list soon. We’ve also acquired dairy goats so we’ll be getting milk soon too. In time, chevon (that’s goat meat) will also be on the list.
Last Saturday I butchered one of our pigs, and today I butchered the other. I gotta say that butchering is exhausting work, but when it goes well it’s satisfying. Last Saturday didn’t go so well. To put it mildly, I botched the kill. After last Saturday, I was very discouraged and felt like maybe I should just haul the remaining pig back to the stock auction and sell it. I can think of a lot of good reasons for raising your own meat, but one of the important reasons to me is that the animal will typically have a higher quality of life on my little farm than it would in some feed lot. Another important reason to me is that when the animal is killed, it happens without a lot of fear or pain. Hence my discouragement.
However, if you make a mistake, you may as well learn from it. I was very apprehensive today, but things went well. Very clean, fast kill. Consequently the whole process of butchering seemed to go easier, and I’m feeling a lot better about raising meat animals again.
So now I have close to 300 lbs of pork in my fridge and freezer - including (so far) about 40 lbs of home made sausage, and 25 lbs of home cured hams. We even made some sausage links. Here’s a tip about making sausage links: Many references will tell you to grind the pork once, and then run it through the grinder again to stuff the sausage casings. The tip? Don’t run it through the grinder the second time. We did this, and what you end up with is VERY finely ground meat, and while the taste is just fine, the texture is NOT like the sausage you’d buy at the store. We still have more sausage to make, more hams to cure, bacons to cure, and a bunch of ribs, loin, and chops to cut up, but at least the hard work is done.
nonais